O Brothers Where Art Thou?
by Miss Beth
Summary: We all know that Snape likes frilly pink things more than Harry. Okay, maybe not. But still, Snape hates Harry. But what if the reason was different from the one Harry knew? Could Lily Potter have a dark secret -or two- herself?
1. How the whole mess got started

Disclaimer: I own nothing that is already owned. Dr. Hawck, Elias, Alex, and Rover are mine. Yow is his own, but if he gets on the counter again his ass is mine!!! More original characters to come. ***PLEASE READ AND REVIEW ( !!!***  
  
Harry lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling. Countless feelings had been welling up inside of him for quite some time: fear, hatred, rage, sadness. Once again he had been forced to spend the summer holiday with his intolerable aunt, uncle, and cousin. Why could he not go straight to the Headquarters of the Order or the Burrow? What unspeakable horror had to occur this time?  
Harry's thoughts were interrupted by his aunt's shrill voice downstairs. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'HE BEAT UP YOUR SON?!'" It was another neighbor complaining about Harry's cousin Dudley's behavior.  
It was my fault, Harry thought, he'd still be here if I'd listened. Listened to Dumbledore, Hermione, everyone. Even Snape.  
"HARRY!" His Aunt Petunia called from downstairs. At least she did not seem to loath him quite as much lately. "Supper!"  
Harry seriously debated whether he was even hungry. Then he remembered he had not eaten since three days before and he probably was, though he did not feel it. Harry rolled off his bed and trudged downstairs. Now that Harry thought about it, supper may not be to bad this evening. Dudley was out tom-catting around again and Uncle Vernon was putting in some extra hours at work, so neither would be home for quite some time. Harry entered the kitchen and sat at the table. Aunt petunia served up salad, roast, and mashed potatoes and gravy. Harry began to dish up some potatoes when Aunt petunia spoke.  
"Harry?"  
"Eh?"  
"You remember me telling you about Dr. Hawck, don't you?"  
"Yeah." Dr. Hawck was a friend of Aunt Petunia's from work. Now that Dudley was old enough to scavenge food from the refrigerator, Aunt Petunia had decided to return to working as a nurse.  
"Well, she is moving out of her apartment and into a nice country cottage. Her new neighbor was going to lend himself and his two boys to the cause, but they were in a car accident. One's back is broken and the other's leg is broken. The father will only be there for part of the day before he has to go to work, and Mariel, Dr. Hawck, Was wondering if you, Dudley, and I would like to help?" Aunt petunia finished with a hopeful tone in her voice. Harry just poked his mashed potatoes. "She says she'll pay you."  
"Fine." Harry replied dully as he stirred his mashed potatoes and gravy. Aunt Petunia watched Harry for a moment. "Oh, Harry, dear, please eat!"  
* * *  
  
It was long, bumpy ride to Boondocks, Surrey. The country side was indeed beautiful, though. The land was criss-crossed with streams, rivers, ponds, and lakes and full of abundant wildflowers. The occasional cottage along the road was also splendid.  
"How much longer?" Dudley whined from the front seat.  
"Oh, about an hour, I imagine." Aunt Petunia answered from the driver's seat. Uncle Vernon, fortunately, was at work again.  
Harry decided to nap the rest of the way to the doctor's home and brought his legs up onto the seat and propped himself against the car door and closed his eyes.  
"Don't lay like that, Harry, leaning like that is how poor Elias managed to break his back." Petunia lectured Harry over her shoulder. Harry returned to his previous position.  
"So is he 'paraplegic' or whatever now?" Dudley asked.  
"No, Mariel said it was pretty minor. He's just going to have surgery -today I think- and he'll be fine." "What's the other twin's name? The one who broke his leg?" Dudley asked. It was odd that he was so keen on this family.  
"Alex."  
"I think I know them!" Dudley exclaimed. "They started at Smeltings last year, they're a year ahead of me! They're really tall."  
"I think you may be right, Mariel said they are tall." Aunt Petunia said.  
Harry was beginning to worry, his previous experiences with boys from Smeltings, beside his cousin, were not particularly good ones. Harry pulled from his pocket a bag of Berty Bott's Every Flavor Beans and began to munch on them. There was several minutes of silnce before anyone spoke again.  
"They're last name, it's 'Snape,' I think." Dudley announced, causing Harry to inhale one of the beans. Harry began coughing to try and get it back up. After a minute he had succeeded. He looked up and saw Aunt Petunia had pulled the car over and both she and Dudley were staring at him.  
"Excuse me."  
  
* * *  
  
"Just put the desk over there, boys, thank you." Dr. Hawck said. She turned out to be a very pleasant woman who reminded Harry a lot of Neville. She was short, squarely built, round faced, and had her extremely long, strawberry-blond hair pulled back into a thick French braid the fell to the backs of her knees. She was also American.  
She set the boxes she carried on the walnut desk Harry and Dudley had just carried in from the moving van.  
"Well, I'm ready for a break, how about you guys?" She asked the two of them. They'd been a work for about an hour and a half.  
"Sure." Aunt Petunia said as she walked in placed a box on the desk.  
"I've got some sodas in the kitchen if you're thirsty." She said and beckoned them to follow her. She passed out sodas from her refrigerator, humming merrily the whole time. They all took a seat at her kitchen table. "I was talking to Bud this morning before he left, and he thinks he can get that armoire upstairs with a little help." She said of a large piece of furniture sitting in the middle of the front room that both Harry and Dudley had been eyeing reproachfully.  
"Is Bud you're neighbor?" Petunia asked.  
"Yeah, it's not his real name though, I just call him that to annoy him. That and I have difficulties with his real name." Mariel chuckled. The evidence was pointing closer and closer to Harry's suspicion of Dr. Hawck's neighbor being Severus Snape, his least favorite teacher, next to Dolores Umbridge. But as far as Harry knew, Snape had no children. And if so, why were they not attending Hogwarts?  
"So, what does your neighbor do?" Petunia asked.  
"He teaches chemistry at some private school up in Scotland." Mariel replied.  
Yep. It's him. Harry thought. Dr. Hawck and Aunt Petunia continued to chatter as Harry stared out of one of the windows. Why had he never heard of Snape's kids? Were they Squibs?  
Mariel and Petunia's conversation had been cut short by the phone ringing. Mariel got up and walked into the next room where it sat on the floor.  
"Hello?" she asked. "Hello?" She hung up the phone and returned to the kitchen. "It has Bud's number on the caller I.D., but there was no answer. I told them to call if they needed anything, and maybe Alex stayed home. He might have fallen over or something. I'm going to run over real quick and see if everything is okay, anyone want to go?" She asked brightly.  
"I'll go." Harry replied. Dr. Hawck looked surprised, then Harry remembered he hadn't said a word since he arrived.  
"Anyone else?"  
"I guess we'll go, Mariel." Petunia said as she stood up. "There's not much we can do without you here anyway."  
Once at Snape's house, Mariel retrieved a key from the mailbox and opened the door. When they got inside, it was eerily quiet. Mariel flipped on a light switch. The front room was elegantly keep with antique dark wood furniture. It was the picture of a pureblooded wizard's home except for the play station strewn across the floor in front of a thirty- two inch television. On a stand near the front door, sat a telephone. Mariel tested to see if it was off the hook, but it was not.  
"Something is not right." she said more to herself than any of the others. "Alex? Hon, are you home?" There was a small, almost silent thud from the ceiling above them, Mariel responded by rushing up a set of stairs at the back of the house. Harry, who had brought his wand, pulled it from his pocket followed her. Aunt Petunia and Dudley let out a gasp.  
"What are doing?!" Aunt Petunia Hissed.  
"She may need help!" Harry hissed back at her. Harry followed Dr. Hawck up the stairs. She paused and looked for the room that may have the one above them when they heard the noise. Spotting and open door to her right, she ran to it. Harry following, she cautiously stepped through the door into what must have been Snape's room. Harry paused and waited. Mariel walked into the room and then dropped her careful guise. I don't know, maybe it was Yow or Rover." She spun around and let out a shriek as a man dressed in a black wizard's robe grabbed her.  
  
"EXPELLIARMUS!!!" Harry pointed his wand at the man and he went soaring across the room and smacked his head on the bed post. Mariel looked at him with a mixture of thankfulness and fear. She then looked back into the corner the man had come from.  
"Alex!" She gasped and stepped back and glanced at Harry. Harry rushed into the room and faced the corner. In it stood a young man with tomato red hair who had to be about six and a half feet tall. A large gorilla-ish man who was also in a black cloak was holding him onto him from behind. The red head finally managed to throw the man away from him. Ran forward and grabbed both Harry and Mariel by the arm and ran out of the room with them.  
"Alex! Your leg! What happened?" Mariel gasped as he lead them down the stairs. They ran into the front room where Aunt Petunia and Dudley stood waiting.  
"GO! MOVE!" Alex shouted and they all ran out the front door.  
"What's going on?!" Aunt Petunia shrieked.  
"Death Eaters." Harry panted  
"We've gotta leave!" Mariel gasped in a fearful voice.  
"Everybody get in the car!" Petunia shouted as Alex continued to pull them away from the house and towards the road.  
"NO!" Alex shouted. "No, we'll call the Knight Bus." 


	2. And the mess continues

Disclaimer: I own nothing that is already owned. Dr. Hawck, Elias, Alex, and Rover are mine. Yow is his own, but if he gets on the counter again his ass is mine!!! ***PLEASE READ AND REVIEW ( !!!***  
  
This place couldn't be any noisier, smellier, or frightening. Dad never liked hospitals. And he had enforced this dislike upon his two sons. What is that Goddam beeping? It that me?! Elias threw open his vibrantly green eyes. He glanced around as best as he could with that dull ache in his back. He was in the same room as the night before, but it was daylight outside. The bright light burned his eyes and he promptly shut them again. This is hell with florescent lighting. "Hey, Hellion. How are doing?" Said a familiarly soft male voice. "Wonderful. They think I'll be doing backbends by this evening." Elias replied to his father's inquiry. "Seriously? I didn't realize muggle healers had made that much advancement in their technology! That's amazing." Dad replied. He then looked rather confused when Elias began to laugh as hard as his injury would allow him. "You're a ditz. I don't care what Hagrid says, you're a ditz." "Say, lookie there, it looks like that strange creature, what's her name, Cyril, sent you some flowers." Dad said with a note of honest surprise in his voice.  
  
"ARE YOU SERIOUS!?!?!" Elias exclaimed as he attempted to spin around and view his bedside table, only managing to maim himself for nothing. Dad chuckled. "You are a ditz. I don't care what Hagrid says, you are a ditz."  
  
* * *  
  
"If I had any idea-" Alex panted as he, for what must have been the tenth time, picked up the recliner which he had been seated in, had gone flying in the latest of the many abrupt stops of the Knight Bus. "-that the ride on this would be so -enthralling- I would have brought a helmet." Harry tried to hold back his laughter as he picked up his small wooden chair. Dudley guffawed stupidly from his chair, which had not upended due to the fact that his own great mass had kept it from going anywhere. Aunt Petunia, however, had chosen to stand, and was clinging with all her life to a wall sconce.  
Dr. Hawck once again addressed the question of Alex's amazing recovery. "How'd your leg heal so quick?" Alex ignored her as he finally righted his chair and sat back down in it. His black eyes darted about nervously and he fidgeted with a bolt that protruded from beneath his lower lip, it was plainly obvious he'd never ridden the Knight Bus before.  
"Where are we going?" Aunt Petunia whimpered from her post at the sconce.  
"Hogwarts." Harry said.  
"No." Alex said.  
"Why not? That's the safest place to be!" Harry stated.  
"Not when they could be waiting for us at the gates." Alex said. His black gaze met Harry's and Harry was distinctly reminded of Alex's father, Professor Snape.  
"So where are we going, then? The Headquarters?" Harry asked irritably.  
Alex returned an all too familiar sneer. "Yes we are, Potter, yes we are." Alex then turned away a stared out the window in silence, all the while still fidgeting with his piercing until they reached Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.  
  
* * *  
  
Snape had watched his son napping for quite some time. Good lord they grow fast. And tall. Surely they got that from their mother's side. Their great-great-great-great-great-grandfather is the same way. So was their mother. Same nose, too. Same damned freckles too. He looks so different without all those nuts and bolts sticking out of his face. Lord knows if he has anymore elsewhere. How many does he have, anyway? Nine in each ear, two in his nose, one in his eyebrow, one in his tongue -he'll be upset when he realizes they took it out for surgery- one in his lip. That's, let's see. Twenty-three. Alex only has six. That obnoxious thing under his lip, two in one ear, three in the other. I hope that's all they have. Elias has that Damned tattoo I told him specifically he could not have as well. "What's that?" Elias was awake. He asked as he pointed at the heart rate monitor.  
"I have no idea." Dad said. He had his muggle-style jacket wrapped tight, insecure way around himself as he looked warily around the room.  
"What's that?" Elias asked as he pointed to another piece of equipment.  
"I don't know."  
"What about that?" he pointed at his I.V.  
"I don't know."  
"That?" Elias inquired, pointing at the television, knowing full well what it was, seeing as they had a rather nice one at home.  
"Dammit, Elias.!" Dad growled, but his eldest son only grinned.  
"Excuse me," Said a voice at the door, a nurse or something "But you have visitors, a Poppy Pomfrey? And a Nymphadora Tonks?"  
"Send them on in." Snape said. A moment later Madam Pomfrey and Tonks were in the hospital room. "Yes?"  
"We came by to help err. Speed up the healing process." Madame Pomfrey told Snape. Tonks was staring at the rather handsome young man sitting in the hospital bed. If it weren't for the black hair, wiry frame, and somewhat large nose, she would have never believed him to be her former professor's son. The red head they'd seen just two hours before seemed to resemble Snape a little more, maybe it was just his demeanor. Otherwise, the twins were practically identical.  
"Do what now?" Elias asked, not quite seeing their intentions.  
"We stopped by the house earlier and heeled Alex's leg, he's in perfect order now." Pomfrey went on. "Miss Tonks, you know the plan."  
Tonks assumed the form of one of the C.N.A.'s Elias had the previous evening and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her.  
"Severus, I'll need you to carefully help me turn him over onto his back." Snape stood and walked over to the bed.  
"Hey-hey, let's not." Elias said very seriously. His painkillers were starting to wear off. Snape seized Elias at his waist and Madame Pomfrey at his shoulders.  
"One, two, three."  
  
* * *  
  
"'Ere's your stop, mates." Stan said merrily as he opened the Knight Bus's doors to let Harry and his party step off. "'Ave a nice summer, Harry! At least woss left of it anyway, eh mate?" His wide smile was quickly wiped off when Alex stumbled off the bus and fell on his face. "'Choo fall over for?"  
Harry thought about and decided that the final stop had left Alex with a concussion.  
Alex let out a piteous moan and Dudley only laughed harder now than when Alex had first fallen off. Harry walked over to Alex who without even looking up extended his hand. Harry took it and helped him up and the Knight Bus Made a loud BANG, causing everyone but Harry to flinch.  
Harry turned around and looked up at the door to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place to see cracked open with a set familiar set of brown eyes peering out of it. Harry ran up the steps.  
"Ron!" Harry exclaimed as the door opened wider to reveal that it was actually one of the twins.  
"Hey, Harry glad to find you're so excited to see us," Said the other twin, who stood behind the first. "You're not going to leave your friends standing in view of the whole neighborhood are you?"  
"Don't mind Fred, he's been touchy lately." Said the first twin, George. "Oy! You lot! Get inside!" He shouted at the others, all of which turned and faced the house. It mildly surprised Harry that his cousin and aunt could see the house, but that Dr. Hawck seemed to be able to see it too struck Harry as odd.  
"Who's there, boys? Ah! Harry, lad, how are you?" Came Mr. Weasley's voice from behind the twins.  
"Fine." Harry said as he beckoned the others to follow him up the front steps and through the door. Once they were all inside and the door closed, Mrs. Black's portrait began screaming like she never had before.  
"YOU FILTHY BLOOD TRAITORS!!! HOW DARE YOU BRING THIS MUGGLE FILTH INTO MY HOME!!! AND THAT SLIMY TRAITOR'S SPAWN!!! THAT HORRID DIRTY BLOODED MIXED BREED!!!" Dr. Hawck looked downright terrified, as did Aunt Petunia and Dudley. Alex merely looked slightly offended. "YOU DISGRACE YOUR GODFATHER'S HOME!!! YOU MUDBLOOD BRAT!!! She shrieked at Harry, and then proceeded to faint.  
"I guess we ought to have you all over more often, eh?" George said as he rubbed his ears. "She's never been that loud before, but she definitely shut herself up. It was definitely worth it."  
Harry now saw at the foot of the stairs now stood Ron and Ginny, and out of the kitchen door poked Mrs. Weasley's, Professor McGonnagall's and Kreacher's head, all inspecting the racket made by Mrs. Black.  
"Well, Harry, I believe I've met your aunt and your cousin, who is, by the way, looking splendid in comparison to the last time I saw him." Mr. Weasley said as he nodded at Dudley, whose chest puffed out proudly as he eyed Ginny, who cringed. "But would you introduce us to your other two companions?"  
McGonnagall's jawed dropped and she began moving as fast as her cane would allow to the group standing near the door.  
"Well, this is a friend of Aunt Petunia's from work, Dr. Mariel Hawck," Harry said and nodded towards Dr. Hawck, who was extremely pale, but managed to smile weakly at Mr. Weasley.  
"A doctor, you say?" Mr. Weasley said, his fascination with everything muggle taking over. "Like a healer? Tell me, how exactly are 'stitches' supposed to work, exactly? I've had them before and they didn't seem to do much-" Mr. Weasely was quickly cut off by McGonnagall's squeals of excitement as she dropped her cane and threw her arms around Alex.  
"Oh, my goodness! How you've grown!" She sniffed, squeezing him in an uncomfortably tight manner. "I haven't see you since Severus first brought you home!" 


End file.
